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HOURS

Visitation Hours: The National Cemetery is open to visitors every day of the year from dawn until dusk.

BURIAL SPACE

This cemetery has space available to accommodate casketed and cremated remains.

DIRECTIONS FROM NEAREST AIRPORT

Cemetery is located in Southeast Leavenworth. From Kansas City International Airport, take Interstate 29 North 7.5 miles to Platte City exit 20. Turn left and proceed through Platte City to Highway 92 and turn West for 8.5 miles. After crossing the bridge into Leavenworth turn left on Highway’s 73 and 7. Travel four miles to Highway 5 (Muncie Road) and proceed .5 miles. The cemetery is on your left.

SCHEDULE A BURIAL

Fax all discharge documentation to the National Cemetery Scheduling Office at 1-866-900-6417 and follow-up with a phone call to 1-800-535-1117.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Leavenworth National Cemetery recently opened a columbarium for placement of your loved ones cremated remains.

There is a KIOSK located by the front door of the administration building to assist you in finding your loved ones gravesite. It contains the names of veterans and their eligible dependents buried at Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth National Cemeteries. The KIOSK will generate a printed map with the name of the decedent and their grave location.

Leavenworth National Cemetery is the oversight cemetery for two satellite cemeteries--Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott National Cemeteries and three soldier's lots--Mound City and Baxter Springs in Kansas and Forest Lawn in Omaha, Nebraska. Leavenworth also oversees a Union Confederate Monument Site in Kansas City, MO.

Military Funeral HonorsMilitary funeral honors as organized under the Department of Defense military funeral honors program "Honoring Those Who Served," should be arranged through the funeral director.

FLORAL/GROUNDS POLICY

Cemetery policies are conspicuously posted and readily visible to the public.

Floral arrangements accompanying the casket or urn at the time of burial will be placed on the completed grave. Fresh-cut flowers may be placed on graves at any time of the year. Cemetery visitors are free to use flower containers located in receptacles placed throughout the grounds. Flowers are picked up on the first and third Mondays of the month during the mowing season, April 1 through October 1.

Artificial flowers and potted plants will be permitted on graves during periods when their presence will not interfere with grounds maintenance. As a general rule, artificial flowers and potted plants will be allowed on graves for a period extending seven days before through seven days after Easter Sunday and Memorial Day.

Christmas wreaths, grave blankets and other seasonal adornments may be placed on graves from Dec. 1 through Jan. 20. They may not be secured to headstones or markers.

Permanent plantings, statues, flags, vigil lights, breakable objects, balloons, pin wheels, shepherd hooks and similar items are not permitted on the graves. The Department of Veterans Affairs does not permit adornments that are considered offensive, inconsistent with the dignity of the cemetery or considered hazardous to cemetery personnel. For example, items incorporating beads or wires may become entangled in mowers or other equipment and cause injury.

Permanent items removed from graves will be placed in an inconspicuous holding area for one month prior to disposal. Decorative items removed from graves remain the property of the donor but are under the custodianship of the cemetery. If not retrieved by donor, they are then governed by the rules for disposal of federal property.

WEAPONS POLICY

VA regulations 38 CFR 1.218 prohibit the carrying of firearms (either openly or concealed), explosives or other dangerous or deadly weapons while on VA property, except for official purposes, such as military funeral honors. Possession of firearms on any property under the charge and control of VA is prohibited. Offenders may be subject to a fine, removal from the premises, or arrest.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Leavenworth National Cemetery is associated with the Western Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers; one of 11 facilities which served as precursors for Veterans Administration Medical Centers. Today the cemetery encompasses 128.8 acres at the southeast portion of the facility.

Prior to the construction of the healthcare facility, the land had been part of a Delaware Indian reservation, and later the Stockbridge (Indian) Baptist Mission. The cemetery was designed concurrent to construction of the first buildings of the National Home; 17 structures were completed by 1886, the same year Thomas Brennan was interred. The design of the cemetery landscape is attributed to H. W. S. Cleveland, with roads that wind up the hill overlooking the Missouri River valley.

The "Old Soldier’s Home," as it was known colloquially, became an integral component of the community. The first local trolley line connected Ft. Leavenworth and the soldier’s home by way of the town of Leavenworth.

The medical facility was transferred to the Veterans Administration (VA) when it was formed in 1930. The cemetery was elevated to national cemetery status and transferred to the new National Cemetery System within VA in 1973. Among the noteworthy burials are the remains of 12 Native Americans that were discovered during the excavation for a new medical building and were re-interred in the National Cemetery. Six Medal of Honor recipients are buried here.

Historic structures in the cemetery include the rest house, a small rustic limestone structure erected in 1921; a 1928 tool house, and a Classical Revival limestone rostrum or "speakers stand," built in 1936. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a component of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medical Center Historic District, the former Western Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, in 1999.

Monuments and MemorialsA limestone obelisk monument erected in memory of "Soldiers Who Died For Their Country" was dedicated in 1919. Situated atop the crest of a hill, the monument overlooks the Missouri River valley from the highest ridge of the cemetery. The monument was transported by the Santa Fe Railroad and moved to its present location in 1919 by prisoners and a team of oxen from the state prison in Lansing. Among the graves in this section are early governors (managers) of the soldier’s home and their families.

The American Veterans (AMVETS) donated a carillon to the cemetery in 2000.

The "Fighting Fourth" Marine Monument was erected by the Fourth Marine Division Association and dedicated in 2002.

OthersDuring the construction of Building 122 on the Medical Center grounds, the remains of 12 Native Americans were uncovered. They were reinterred in a single grave, Section 34, Row 21, Grave 8, the only group burial in the cemetery. It is believed that they belonged to a small band of Christian Indians, the Munsees, who during the early 1800s were permitted to settle on land now occupied by the Dwight D. Eisenhower Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center.